1: Under normal conditions, we only use a small portion of our brain, say 10 percent.
So, when we achieve peak performance, also known as flow, it must be because we use more of our brain. Right?
“Turns out, we had it exactly backward,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.
“The prefrontal cortex is a powerful place,” he writes. “It’s the seat of a lot of our higher cognitive functions. Executive attention, logical decision-making, long-term thinking, our sense of morality, our sense of willpower—they all reside here.”
But when we are in a flow state, this portion of our brain shuts down.
“We’re trading energy usually used for higher cognitive functions for heightened attention and awareness,” says Arne Dietrich, a neuroscientist at the American University of Beirut.
2: Which is why time passes so differently when we are in flow.
“Time is a calculation performed in a number of different parts of the prefrontal cortex,” Steven notes. “It’s a network effect. But like any network, when too many nodes shut down, the whole system collapses. When this happens, we can no longer separate past from present from future and are instead thrust into ‘the deep now.'”
What else happens when we are in flow? Performance increases dramatically.
“Most of our fears and most of our anxieties don’t exist in the present,” Steven writes. “Either we’re concerned about horrible things that happened long ago—and we’re remembering them in the present so we don’t repeat those mistakes—or they’re scary things that might happen in the future and we’re trying to steer around them from the present.”
When we are in the “deep now,” the past and future recede, and anxiety decreases.
“Stress hormones are flushed from the system, replaced by mood-boosting chemicals such as dopamine,” he writes. “And since a good mood increases our ability to find far-flung links between ideas, creativity spikes as well.”
Our sense of self also decreases. Studies show when jazz musicians are in flow, the areas of the brain where self-monitoring occurs are nearly entirely deactivated.
“Self-monitoring is that voice of doubt, that defeatist nag, our inner critic,” Steven writes. “The result is liberation. We act without hesitation. Creativity becomes more free-flowing, risk-taking becomes less frightening, and the combination lets us flow at a far faster clip.”
3: Another fascinating aspect of high performance is the role played by neurochemicals like endorphins, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and anandamide, all of which are present when we are in a flow state.
“All of these neurochemicals help explain why flow tends to show up when the impossible becomes possible,” Steven writes.
“The reason? It’s because of how these neurochemicals impact all three sides of the high-performance triangle: motivation, learning, and creativity.
“On the motivation side, all six of these chemicals are reward drugs, making flow one of the most rewarding experiences we can have. This is why researchers call the state ‘the source code of intrinsic motivation’ and why McKinsey discovered that productivity is amplified 500 percent in flow—that’s the power of addictive, pleasure chemistry.”
The neurochemicals in our brains also drive our ability to learn.
“The more neurochemicals that show up during an experience, the better chance that experience moves from short-term holding into long-term storage. Since flow produces an enormous neurochemical cocktail, our ability to retain information skyrockets.
“In research conducted by Advanced Brain Monitoring and the Department of Defense, in flow, learning rates soar by 230 percent.
Creativity and risk-taking also skyrocket. “Because it’s not enough to simply have that neat idea, you also have to introduce it to the world, risk-taking is also required by creativity. And risk-taking, thanks to all of the dopamine in our system, gets amplified as well.
“Even better, Harvard’s Teresa Amabile found that the heightened creativity produces by flow can outlast the flow state itself, by a day, sometimes two.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How often do I experience a state of flow? Have I experienced the loss of time, a reduced sense of self, and higher creativity and risk-taking?
Action: Discuss with a friend or colleague.